


Home (is Where the Heart is) for Christmas

by msred



Series: Starting Over [13]
Category: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Morning, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Family Fluff, Gift Giving, Holidays, Long-Distance Relationship, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21958327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: Chris had first pitched the idea of me going to Boston for the holiday in October, and he’d done it so sheepishly, with such quiet hopefulness, as if he was afraid he was asking too much by wanting to pull me away from whatever I might have been missing in Kentucky or Virginia, that I probably fell a little more in love with him in that moment. In all honesty, there was nothing that sounded better to me than spending Christmas with him and his family.
Relationships: Chris Evans (Actor) & Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor) & Reader, Chris Evans (Actor) & You, Chris Evans (Actor)/Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor)/Reader, Chris Evans (Actor)/You
Series: Starting Over [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1423663
Comments: 24
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Work in Progress](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186452) by [msred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred). 



> 1) Timeline - This is the same holiday break as "Everything Changes," which means it also falls about a month after "Thankful." If you haven't read "Thankful," it's a cutesy little Thanksgiving fluff piece, but it does shed light on who one of the people is who is mentioned in this story.
> 
> 2) That whole disclaimer again about unnamed real-life characters ...
> 
> 3) Of course I would LOVE for you to read all the stories in this series, but in particular, if you haven't read "Work in Progress," that would make a lot of things in this one make a lot more sense.

_11 months together (Christmas, Year 2)_

I’m one of those people who never outgrew the magic of Christmas as I grew out of childhood. There were a few years, in college, when the season didn’t really _feel_ like Christmas to me anymore, when the back and forth between South Carolina and Kentucky and not being surrounded by the same people I’d been surrounded by while growing up had taken some of the wonderful nostalgia out of the holiday, but I never stopped loving it. Even the years that I worked in retail, while I complained about the nearly three months of Christmas music and the decorations and the often terrible customers, I loved the feeling I got as the holiday grew closer and closer. I loved the way most people just seemed nicer, the way friends felt more like family and family got a little more warm and loving than usual, the way everything from the food to the lights and the decorations seemed to be centered on bringing happiness and joy and love. That childlike wonder, that warm feeling, hadn’t subsided when I got married and became a “real adult;” if anything, it had only grown. That was probably because my husband had been much the same way, becoming silly and giddy around the holiday in a way that he rarely did otherwise, his reserved, stoic nature taking over most of the time. I was the dreamer and the idealist in the relationship, he was the voice of reason. I don’t know that I completely subscribe to the idea that opposites attract, but in that one sense at least, it worked for us. There was balance.

Some part of that idealist, that dreamer, had died when my husband did. Even worse was that the nugget of anxiety that had always sat right next to that idealism seemed to have grown, expanding to fill the space that was left behind. More than once since I’d met Chris, and even still since we’d started our relationship - become partners, he liked to say - that anxiety had made itself frustratingly, even painfully, known. But those instances were growing fewer and farther between. And better still, it seemed that the idealism I’d thought was dead was coming back in their place.

I’d spent the last Christmas before my husband died, while he was deployed, alone in Virginia, expecting him to be home within the next month or so and trying to pretend that it wasn’t actually Christmas yet. The first Christmas after he died I spent in Kentucky with my family, the first time I’d done that since college. Some years my husband and I hadn’t had the option of going back there for the holidays, but most of the time we’d just chosen not to. He hadn’t really been close with his family, and my relationship with most of the members of mine was complicated in the good moments, toxic in the bad ones, so in order to preserve the joy of the holiday, we’d chosen to spend them just with one another. There had been moments of that first family Christmas after so many years that I’d been able to make the most of, even enjoy, like getting to watch my niece’s face light up when she opened her gifts or see how happy my grandparents were to have me home, but I couldn’t help but long for the next time I’d have a truly joyful Christmas again, one without the anxiety and ‘on-edge’ sensation that always came with being with my family.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long. Less than a month after that first Christmas as a widow, after several months of friendship, Chris and I started dating officially. Almost a year later, we were spending our first Christmas together. He’d first pitched the idea of me going to Boston for the holiday in October, and he’d done it so sheepishly, with such quiet hopefulness, as if he was afraid he was asking too much by wanting to pull me away from whatever I might have been missing in Kentucky or Virginia, that I probably fell a little more in love with him in that moment. In all honesty, there was nothing that sounded better to me than spending Christmas with him and his family. All my friends in Virginia had their own families to spend time with, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to going back to Kentucky, but more than that, I would take any opportunity to spend time with him. I didn’t need him to be a kid-at-heart-Christmas-fanatic like I was to make Christmas with him special. That being said, I’d talked to him on the phone the previous Christmas, when we were still “just friends” (I knew then that label had no chance of lasting much longer; my fear of rushing into a relationship had all but disappeared, when it came to him at least), and I knew how excited he’d been at the prospect of playing Santa for his niece and nephews, how much he enjoyed anything that revolved around family, and most of all, how he was able to take joy from nearly anything, so I had a feeling that Christmas with him would go a long way toward bringing back the magic that had been missing the past couple Christmases.

Even before Christmas day arrived, Chris had managed to, well, make my heart grow three sizes, all of it full of him (with a small section being shared by his incredible family). He’d insisted that I fly up the same evening that school finished for the holiday break, eight days before Christmas, and he’d hurried me out of the airport the second my checked bag dropped onto the carousel. We’d picked up Chinese on the way to his house, and when we walked in the front door, even the entryway glowed with the light from the tree in the living room. Four stockings - one for Dodger, one for Millie, who would have to wait until I went back home after New Year’s for hers, one for me, and one for him (“ _You don’t have to fill mine, really, I just thought we should both have one.”_ ) - hung on his mantle and _National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation_ was already cued up on the television. I’d narrowed my eyes a little when I smirked up at him over my shoulder regarding his particular choice of movies, and he only grinned back and jerked his eyebrows up once toward his hairline before taking my hand and pulling me with him to the couch, dragging the coffee table closer for us to eat off of.

Then on Sunday, after we’d come back to his house from spending the day at his mom’s with the whole family, baking, watching movies and playing games, and decorating the family tree, he’d sat me down and pulled a large gift from the back of the neat stack under the tree and told me to _open it, right now_. When I’d pushed him on why he wanted me to open it six days early, he only crossed his arms, leaned back against the arm of the couch, and smirked, lips a little puckered and eyes squinted playfully. While I was still fawning over the beautiful camel-colored jacket he’d tucked inside the box and running my fingers over the buttery soft cashmere, he pulled two colorful slips of paper, just smaller than dollar bills, from his back pocket and dropped them on top of the jacket. “Christopher!” I gasped.

“Uh oh,” he grinned and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, “the long name. Am I in trouble?”

“What did you do?” I fanned the tickets between my thumb and forefinger and stared down at them, taking in one detail at a time. _Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Tuesday. December 21st. 7 pm._

“Well,” he drawled, still smirking like the cat that ate the canary, “it _looks_ like I got you a jacket to wear when we go see _Waitress_ down in New York in a coupla days.” He reached out to flick the tickets with his index finger then lifted his hand to tug at my hair where it hung over my shoulder. “Full disclosure though, it’s not _just_ us. It’s all the kids.” He must have seen the way my eyes grew, because he laughed and went on quickly, “Not the grandkids though, don’t worry. Just the grown-ups. And Scott.” He winked.

“This is …” I trailed off for a second, my thumb rubbing over the title of the show over and over. “Really?” I didn’t actually doubt him, it’s not like the jacket or the tickets or the hotel he’d probably already booked were going to put him in any kind of financial bind (for all I knew he could’ve bought all eight of our tickets without a problem, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had), but I hadn’t yet become accustomed to his particular brand of surprises - far more financially extravagant than anything I’d yet been used to in my life, yes, but also unique, and special, and completely tailored to me. Truthfully? I didn’t want to become accustomed to them, to get to a point where I might take them for granted.

“Yeah, really.” He just laughed. I think he liked how blown away I always was when he managed to surprise me. (He complained often that I was ‘too hard’ to surprise; and while my tendency to overanalyze things makes it difficult for me to not pull at threads that are often left loose when someone tries to pull off a surprise, I blamed it more on the fact that our long distance relationship meant that everything we did had to be so pre-planned.) “You like it?”

I’d reached out then with the hand still holding the tickets and punched him, not hard, but not _that_ light, on the side of his thigh. “You ridiculous man. What do you think?” Still laughing, he plucked the tickets from my fingers and dropped them into the gift box still on my lap before pulling it off my legs to set it on the floor and pull _me_ onto _his_ lap.

Christmas break in Boston with the Evanses had absolutely been the joy-inducing, magic-redeeming, family experience I’d needed. The two and a half days I’d gotten to spend in New York with Chris, his siblings, and the men in each of their respective lives, just a few days before Christmas, was fun, beautiful, and an absolute Christmas overload. In addition to the show, we’d done the touristy things like Central Park and the tree at Rockefeller Center, and we’d even made fools of ourselves, some of us, attempting to skate. Scott was frustratingly good at it, and their older sister was quite good as well, but the rest of us were certainly not paragons of grace on our skates. Honestly, I’d expected Chris to be better than he was, because he’s so athletic in general, but while he was steadier on his feet than I was, he was no expert. And when I’d lost my balance and he’d tried valiantly to keep me upright, we’d both landed on the ice. (I made a mental note to look for a bruise on his backside that night or the next morning - he’d gone down butt-first with me right on top of him and I couldn’t imagine that his lovely ass had made it out of that unscathed.)

As fun as that mini trip-within-a-trip had been, and as much as it had absolutely felt like Christmas because of the decorations across the city and in our hotel, and the music, and the store windows all over the city that announced loudly and clearly that it was the holiday season, the moments back in Boston were, for the most part, better, at least when it came to soothing my soul and restoring the magic of Christmas in my heart. We’d spent Christmas Eve at Mrs. Evans’s house, the whole family. All throughout the afternoon and evening, the (rarely used, I was told) table in the formal dining room had remained covered with finger foods and the cookies we’d made earlier in the week. Family friends and co-workers had dropped in, some bringing more food, others bringing wine or beer, and some even bearing small gifts for Mrs. Evans or the kids. Chris’s dad and step-mom, who the kids and grandkids would be celebrating with more formally after I’d headed back to Virginia, had even dropped in for a while on their way out of town to spend Christmas with the second Mrs. Evans’s family, handing out gifts to everyone, including Chris’s mom. (Considering it was only the second time I was meeting them, the beautiful, soft-as-a-cloud scarf, hat, and glove set they’d given me was actually perfectly my style.) While each guest had visited for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or more, the constants were the core members of the Evans clan - Chris and his siblings, the significant others, and, of course, the kids - and at 8 pm almost on the dot, the front door closed and the twelve of us collapsed in various positions - on furniture, on the floor, on one another - in the living room. Chris and I ended up on the rug in front of the couch where Scott and Zach sat with the youngest Evans daughter. His back rested against the couch and his legs stretched in front of him with my head on his thigh and his niece’s head resting on my side where she lay on her back. I guessed we must have looked like a portion of a human crossword puzzle.

After no more than two minutes of recovery time, the younger of Chris’s two nephews was back on his feet. “Grandma! Christmas Eve presents!” Mrs. Evans had laughed, and the boy’s mom had just closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Absolutely, sweetheart,” Mrs. Evans told him, “why don’t you pass them out?”

The sweet boy ran to the tree and started grabbing boxes. I hadn’t noticed until then that every box under the tree was the exact same size and shape and that there were four distinct wrapping paper designs. I pushed myself to sit up at Chris’s side as his nephew recruited his sister and brother to help him pass out the gifts, and when they were finished, every couple or small family had a matching set of packages (Chris’s and mine were rustic and old-fashioned looking, a tan background adorned with primitive little snowmen) and none remained under the tree. I must have looked confused, or at least surprised, because Chris leaned over and spoke quietly into my ear, “Don’t be fooled, she’s got stacks of gifts in her bedroom. She’ll put the rest out after everyone leaves or goes to bed. She’s afraid if she puts them all out, _someone_ ,” he cut his eyes over to Scott, “will ‘accidentally’ open Christmas morning gifts on Christmas Eve.” I giggled and nodded my understanding.

“Okay!” The little boy called, “Ready, set, go!” 

I looked around in wonder as everyone, regardless of age, tore into his or her gift with excitement and vigor. When I continued to just sit there, watching, Chris nudged me with his elbow and nodded at my own gift when I looked over at him. Right. My gift. I was the last to get my gift completely open, and my heart jumped into my throat when I looked around the room and saw the coordinating pajamas in every box, or, by that point, spread across laps. All “the girls” had been given full sets of flannel pjs, button-down tops and all, covered in different holiday or winter figures. I grinned at the reindeer, my favorite, on mine, and looked around at the penguins, snowmen, and nutcrackers on Chris’s niece’s and sisters’. ‘The boys’ had gotten plaid flannel pants with coordinating solid-colored t-shirts, and we all received socks to match the gifted pajamas. There were no two gifts, even among the guys’ plaid, that were exactly the same. But they all clearly went together, with all of them having the same artistic style to the designs and sharing a color scheme (red and green, of course, but more than that, the colors matched in tone, and the pjs used same accent colors as well). It was easy to look around at the room full of Christmas pajamas and guess that you were in the home of a theatre family - it was like the gifts had been chosen by a costume designer, perfectly coordinated to show the unity within the family, but also just different enough as to not be “matchy.”

I’d looked at Chris a little funny when he stood from where we’d been lounging and reached down to pull me up. “C’mon Dopey, we gotta go change.”

“Oh. Now?”

He laughed at me. “Yes, now. That’s the whole point. We open our Christmas Eve gifts, always pjs, we change _into_ our pjs, Ma takes a family picture, and then we watch Christmas movies and drink cocoa until everyone passes out or goes home.”

“You know you guys are disgustingly perfect, right?” He dropped his head back and laughed then brought it forward again to kiss the top of my head, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to pull me with him upstairs to an unoccupied guest room. 

“Hey,” he closed the door behind him and turned to lean back against it. I looked over my shoulder at him from where I was laying my new pajamas out on the bed to get ready to change, and he crooked an index finger at me, motioning for me to come to him. When I stood in front of him he reached for my hips and pulled me forward until I rested along the length of his body, opening his legs a little to make room for me to stand between them. “Do you know how awesome you are?” I lowered my eyebrows and looked up at him skeptically. “I mean it,” he dug his fingers into my hips a little. “This day is a lot. It’s hectic and crazy and non-stop. It overwhelms _me_ sometimes, and it’s my life, my family, my friends. I know there had to be a lot going on up here,” he tapped the top of my head with one finger then instantly brought his hand back to my waist, “but it never showed. You were smart, and funny, and gracious, and even though it would have been absolutely understandable for you to back off and take a breather now and then, you just kept going, that beautiful smile on your face the whole time.” I couldn’t help but smile then, and he saw it before I managed to get my head down, a little embarrassed under all his praise. He reached up to tilt my head back up with a finger under my chin. “Yeah, that one,” he grinned then leaned in to kiss me, short, but so sweet. “And,” he added, chuckling a little, “you did it all with a seven-year-old attached to your hip.”

I laughed then too. His niece had stayed right by my side for most of the day, sometimes standing by quietly while I carried on a conversation, other times pulling me across the room to introduce me to someone she thought I should meet while Chris was otherwise occupied. Honestly, I didn’t think that I’d done anything impressive that day, but if I had, she probably deserved some of the credit. Knowing that she was right there the whole time had kept me on my game, partially because Chris and his sister had both made it very clear that the little girl adored me (the feeling was very, very mutual) and I didn’t want to let her down by _not_ being all the things Chris had just said I was, but also because her energy and joy were contagious.

“I love this,” I told him, wrapping my own arms around his waist so that he had to pull away from the door a little. “It feels like everything Christmas is supposed to be.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he leaned in for another kiss, just pressing his lips against mine and holding them there for a moment. “Everyone is.”

“Me too.” I rubbed my thumbs over his back where my hands rested along his spine then wrapped my arms fully around him when he pulled me in, squeezing his arms around my back and holding me tight for a second before reaching down to pat me on the butt.

“Okay, now change, before we get yelled at for holding up the movie. God only knows what Scott will try to convince Mom we’re doing in here.” 

The rest of the night had been perfect, as far as I was concerned - _The Santa Clause_ and cocoa (made “grown-up” for the adults with Bailey’s and creme de menthe) with the whole family, all while sprawled on the floor with Chris and the kids, sharing a makeshift ‘bed’ constructed of pillows from the couch and guest rooms and spare blankets from all over the house, then reading _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ together to the kids, funny voices and all. We hadn’t left to head back to Chris’s house until the kids had passed out and I was leaning against him, my blinks getting longer and longer until finally he insisted he needed to get ‘Sleepy’ home and tucked in before Santa skipped us over. (His mom had offered several days earlier for us to stay the night, but he’d gotten a little cagey and insisted he wanted us to wake up at home.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas morning

I woke up on Christmas morning alone in Chris’s bed, but even before I had my eyes open I heard him shuffling back into the room. I also smelled coffee, smooth and rich and with a hint of … cinnamon? Nutmeg, maybe? I rolled onto my back and blinked heavily until my eyes focused - no easy task without the aid of glasses or contacts - and by the time I could really make out what was going on, he was lowering himself onto the edge of the bed next to my hip, settling a tray onto the night stand. 

“What are you doing?” I asked him, stretching my sleep-stiffened muscles. I couldn’t see well, but he was close enough that I could tell that he was grinning down at me softly. I loved that smile. He handed me my glasses off the nightstand and watched me push myself up to sit with my back against the headboard, dropping his hand to my knee once I was settled. “Where’d you go?”

“Well,” he drawled, and his sweet smile shifted to a smirk, “what is Christmas without a few surprises?” He lifted his eyebrows high on his forehead then reached for the tray he’d brought in with him, bringing it to rest on my thighs. On the tray was a glass of cranberry juice, the coffee I’d smelled before, and what appeared to be an inverted metal mixing bowl (which I was pretty sure had come from his mom’s, both because I thought I remembered seeing it when we were making cookies and because he didn’t really cook). 

He watched me as I gingerly lifted the bowl with both hands, taking it from me when I looked around for a place to put it that wouldn’t require me to move and spill everything on the tray. “Chris,” I nearly whispered, my breath quite literally taken, “what  _ is  _ all this?”

“Uh-oh. I know I’m not as good a cook as you are, but I thought it was at least recognizable.” He wiggled his eyebrows when I rolled my own eyes at him. 

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to look at me a little sideways, “What did you mean then, girly?” I knew better than to take him seriously, the way he smirked.

“I mean  _ why _ ? I figured we’d just have cereal, or a bagel or something. Your mom will kill us if we aren’t able to each have  _ at least  _ seconds of everything she’s making for Christmas lunch.” I put a hand up to stop him when he opened his mouth to say something. “And I  _ know  _ that won’t be a problem for you, but I don’t have your appetite or your metabolism.”

“Well, then let me explain.” He grinned like he’d been waiting for an opportunity to do just that. I bowed my head a little and reached one hand out, palm up, as if to say,  _ go on _ , reaching for the juice glass with the other hand. I stopped, my free hand flying up to my mouth, when I took a small drink and bubbles tickled the roof of my mouth. He laughed a little. “So I guess I’ll start there. Cranberry juice and champagne, like a little Christmas spin on mimosas. Is it okay?”

“It’s good. Really good.” It was one of my favorites, actually, something I’d been doing for Christmas for a while. “It just took me by surprise.”

“That was the plan. So, remember how I kept asking you about your Christmas traditions, and you kept trying not to tell me?”

I rolled my eyes. “I told you, I don’t want my presence to change  _ your  _ Christmas.” I didn’t want him, or any of them, going out of the way to accomodate me. I wanted to be a part of his Christmas, not change it.

“But I do,” he brought both hands to the outsides of my legs, just below where the tray rested, and wrapped his hands around my thighs as much as possible. “I want this to be  _ our  _ Christmas. So, I took what little you gave me and ran with it. You can be really difficult, you know,” he pretended to scold me, eyes narrowed and fingers digging a little into my legs, then nodded down to the tray on my lap.

When he wouldn’t relent, asking me every time we talked, sometimes multiple times in a single conversation, what traditions I always carried over from one Christmas to the next, I finally gave in and told him that, in addition to the movies I watched every year, I’d always done a big Christmas breakfast, rather than a lunch or dinner. It was something my mom had done when I was a kid, and I’d carried it on into adulthood and done the same for my husband and me. Once I was away from home and it was just the two of us, rather than a whole extended family, I’d pared it down quite a bit, but Christmas breakfast was still the biggest, most involved breakfast I made all year.

“I may have, also, maybe,” he grinned, “stolen your phone while you were in the shower last weekend and called Spencer.”

I fake-gasped. “That traitor.”

“Yep,” Chris rolled his eyes, “worst friend in the world, giving your boyfriend ideas for ways to surprise you and make your Christmas special.” I just stuck my tongue out at him. “He told me that you’re weirdly particular about keeping things seasonally appropriate. So, I combined that with what you told me about your Christmas breakfasts, and here you go.” He swept his hand over the tray in front of me. “Now, I know you don’t typically like to have waffles for breakfast because you say you’re hungry again an hour later.  _ But _ ,” he leaned in closer to me, careful not to bump anything on the tray, “I also know you love them. And like you already said, we’re going to Mom’s for her giant spread later anyway, so it’s perfect.” I looked down at the Belgian waffle in front of me and found myself subconsciously biting my bottom lip. “Don’t get too excited, it  _ is _ from a boxed mix, but I added cinnamon. And I know you don’t really like syrup, weirdo,” he grinned and leaned in even closer, bumping his forehead against mine, “so I took what Spencer said, and that,” he gestured at the little glass bowl of dark red syrup on the plate next to the waffle, “is orange-cranberry-vanilla sauce.” My eyes grew to what must have been an unnaturally large, round size and shape, because his grin took over his face and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. “I can’t take too much credit, Mom made it. But I told her what I wanted. And then we have, of course -”

I cut him off, “Pesto eggs. Obviously.” 

“Obviously,” he pulled a cute, fake-modest face as he said it. “There had to be something on here that I did, all me.”

I lifted one hand just in front of my face, careful to make sure the tray was steady in the other as I did so, and crooked my index finger at him. “C’mere.” He scooted in a little closer, just until he was within an inch of bumping the tray. I shook my head. “Uh-uh. Closer.” He laughed and his eyes fell closed, his head shaking, then he lifted the tray off my lap and set it carefully back onto the nightstand. I wrapped both hands around the sides of his neck as he scooted in closer, and when he was finally close enough, I leaned up to kiss him, wrapping my lips around his and pulling just a little before letting my tongue trace the seam between his lips until he parted them, kissing back and wrapping his arms around me, low on my back. When I finally pulled back, I sighed and dropped my head to his shoulder, sliding my hands down his arms to rest on his biceps and nuzzling my face into the side of his neck. “I still don’t really understand how I got here,” I nearly whispered, and his hands drifted up and down over my back, “but there is absolutely nowhere else I’d rather be.”

He leaned his head over until his cheek rested on the side of my head. “I love you, baby girl. Merry Christmas.”

“I love you too, Chris. Merry Christmas.”

He turned to kiss the side of my head then pulled back. “Okay, now food. We’ve got a big day to get to.” His eyebrows shot up and he looked so much like an adorable little kid I couldn’t help but laugh as I started to push the covers off my legs. “Whoa, where are you going?”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “To eat.” He just looked back and me and shook his head. He couldn’t be serious. “Uh-uh. No, I can’t eat that here.”

“But if you don’t, it won’t be breakfast in bed,” he said it with an air of  _ obviously  _ behind it.

“Well, no, but we’re talking a waffle and syrup.  _ Cranberry  _ syrup. You know how clumsy I am.” I looked down at his white down comforter. “I absolutely cannot eat that in bed.” He just looked back at me, unimpressed. “And what about you? I just figured your food was downstairs.” 

He shrugged. “There’s still some in the kitchen. But I figured we’d share, for now at least. I know you’re not going to eat all that, and I’ll get more in a bit if I’m still hungry.”

I still wasn’t convinced, so I went for my last line of defense. “Well, breakfast in bed was never my tradition. It was just normal breakfast. At a table.”

“Yeah, well,” he crossed his arms and leaned across my legs so that one elbow pressed into the mattress, sharing the load of his body weight with the hip still resting on the other side of my lap. He was literally blocking me from getting out of the bed. “I’m modifying your tradition and making it  _ our  _ tradition.”

“You’re a brat,” I told him, and he just grinned. “But seriously Chris, I’m really afraid I’m going to mess up your bed. 

“Okay, fine,” he sighed and pushed himself up off the bed, then pointed sharply down at me, “but don’t move.” I tracked him with my eyes as he crossed the room and disappeared into the en suite bathroom. When I heard him start rummaging around in the linen closet, I reached over to the nightstand for the coffee, hooking my hand through the handle, and brought it to my lips. God, it smelled amazing. I took a sip and it tasted even better. I couldn’t help but moan a little.

“Hey you,” he called from the bathroom, “what are you doing in there without me?”

“What did you do to this coffee?” I asked in response. He appeared in the doorway, leaning on the door jamb with an armful of towels.

“Good?”

“Sooooo good.” He laughed as he watched me take another sip, crossing the room and dropping the towels at the foot of the bed.

He picked up one towel and started to spread it across my lap. “That, I also did on my own. Basically,” he added when my eyebrows shot up. I wanted to laugh, but I already had the mug back to my lips. “I Googled ‘Christmas coffee,’ and-”

“You didn’t,” then I did laugh a little, bringing the coffee down to my lap, cradling the mug in both hands.

“I did,” he laughed along with me, “and I ended up on Pinterest.”

“Oh boy.”

“Yeah. It was … overwhelming.” He chuckled again. “But there were lots of good ideas. So that,” he nodded down to the mug I held, still spreading the towels on and around me, “is your very special Christmas brew. I got a traditional coffee maker -”

“Chris,” I interrupted again. He only had a Keurig, and even that he didn’t use often, not being a huge coffee drinker. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him going out and buying a coffee maker just to make my Christmas coffee, even though it  _ was _ incredible.

“No,” he shook his head, “I  _ borrowed  _ it. It’s Ma’s. We’ve actually gotta take it back when we go over later.” I released a heavy breath and my shoulders dropped a little. That was better. “But I needed it because all the stuff I read said that cinnamon and stuff should go straight in the coffee grounds.” I just nodded, that was actually really good advice. “So I made sure to get good coffee, and I put in cinnamon, nutmeg, a little clove, a little ginger, even some allspice, which I  _ thought  _ was just a bunch of other spices mixed together, but I guess it’s not? Anyway.” He shrugged and I only smiled and nodded. He was so cute, and clearly proud of himself. “I got the spices from Ma too. And then I put some vanilla in the cream before I put it in the coffee. There’s still some of that in the fridge, if you make another cup.” I would definitely be making another cup. Possibly a few more cups. 

“It’s so,” I let my eyes fall closed, “ _ so  _ good.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He kissed the top of my head then stepped back to look at his handiwork. “Okay then, I think we should be good. Now if you spill anything, we just throw the towels in the wash. Can we please eat now?” I laughed and nodded in agreement, folding my legs up in front of me as he reached yet again for the breakfast tray. He set the tray on my legs then sat in front of me, mirroring my posture. 

It was a good breakfast, really good. He’d only brought one fork, so we’d taken turns, passing it back and forth between bites of his pesto eggs, and we’d just torn pieces off the waffle and dipped them into the cranberry sauce. He may not have considered himself to be much of a cook, but there was absolutely nothing I would have changed about the meal.

He’d watched me take the last couple bites, then taken the fork out of my hand and dropped it onto the tray, lifting the tray off my lap and just setting it straight onto the bed, on top of his barrier of towels, of course. I’m pretty sure I looked at him like he’d completely lost his mind when he threw the covers off me, barely avoiding landing the corner of the comforter right in the bowl of cranberry sauce, then grabbed my hands and pulled me abruptly up off the bed. 

“What on earth are you doing?” I finally asked him when he had me on my feet in front of him. 

“Time for presents!”

“I … thought we were doing that at your mom’s.”

“We are,” he nodded, “mostly. But there’s a little bit I wanted to do here first. So,” he reached around me to smack my panty-covered ass, “put on some pants, or don’t,” he shrugged and winked, “and let’s go.”

Before I had a chance to say anything else, he’d picked the breakfast tray up off the bed and was out of the room. I only shook my head at his antics then opened the nightstand drawer where I’d put my new pj pants after pulling them off the night before, unable to sleep in long pants, especially with that human heater of a man wrapped around me. He definitely didn’t mind, since, according to his logic (it was good logic, I had to admit), they were almost inevitably going to end up coming off any time we got to share a bed anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stocking stuffers

When I got to the living room, Chris was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, his stocking in his lap and mine right in front of him and a fresh cup of coffee on the fireplace hearth. Actually, the only stocking left on the mantle was Millie’s, and I looked over to see Dodger in his bed, doing his very best to retrieve the peanut butter from the hole in the center of the new toy Chris had put in his stocking a few days earlier. That explained why he hadn’t made an appearance during our bedroom picnic.

“Time for stockings!” He picked mine up and held it out to me as I approached him, taking it gingerly from his extended hand and sitting down to face him. “We’ll do the other stuff with the family, but I wanted to do this here. You go first?” Somehow, I doubted that he was normally an orderly, one-at-a-time gift opener. But something about his expression told me he really wanted to watch me open the stocking. It also made me a little nervous, because it made me think there was something big in there (not literally, obviously, but figuratively, or symbolically), and there was  _ definitely  _ nothing big in his. I hadn’t even realized before arriving a week earlier that he was going to have stockings for us. I should have, knowing him, but it hadn’t crossed my mind. 

I reached in and started pulling things out. The first several were pretty standard stocking fare - candy, a silly little figurine of an owl that was somewhat of an inside joke that had started in my classroom and that he’d found amusing when I told him about it, and a set of what he knew to be my favorite pens for school, taken out of their original packaging and wrapped in a rubber band, I assumed so they would fit in the stocking better. After that came several pieces of tissue paper that eventually had me looking up at him questioningly.  
“Keep going,” he nodded.

Finally, I got to the bottom of the stocking and my stomach flipped a little when my hand closed around what felt like a small, square, leather box. Now, I didn’t expect it to be a ring - I knew it was too soon for that, even if I was so happy with him, so deeply, purely in love with him, that it actually made my heart hurt some days, and I was pretty sure, mostly sure, that he felt the same way - but it was definitely a jewelry box of some sort, which meant it was far, far more than anything that was in the stocking I’d put together for him. I took my time pulling the box out of the stocking, stalling so I could try to prepare myself for what it might be.

The box itself gave nothing away. It was just a simple navy box, no branding or markings whatsoever that might give a hint as to what it contained. I kept my head down but looked up at him from under my brow and he just smiled softly at me. In my periphery, I could see his hands fidgeting in his lap, thumbs tucking into his palms and fingers closing tight over them, then opening to do it all over again. I looked back down at the box in my hand and flipped the lid up with my thumbs. When I saw the necklace inside, my right hand flew up to the hollow of my collarbone to finger the necklace I already wore. The one in the box matched it so closely it was uncanny. It was a dull, brushed gold, a small wavy square, similar to a flag waving or a piece of paper fluttering, hanging delicately from a dainty chain. 

Chris’s fingers brushed mine when he reached to take the box from my hand. When he started to pull the card the necklace hooked into from the box, I looked up to his face. He was still looking at the necklace, working it carefully from the card, when he told me, “I had it made. I took some pictures of yours and sent them to my stylist, asked her to find someone who could make me one to go with it.” He stopped talking for a second, having worked the chain completely free from the card that held it and set the card and the box aside, and laid the necklace carefully in his palm so that the charm faced up at me and the chain hung, swinging gently, down his forearm. “I made sure to have it put on a chain longer than yours so you can wear them together.”

I finally snapped to and let my hand move from the necklace I was already wearing to trace the one in his hand with my fingertips. It was beautiful, and it was amazing how well the creator had done matching it to mine, based, apparently, just on some pictures Chris had sent.

“That was the point,” he told me, and I lifted my head to look him in the eyes, soft and loving and so, so sincere. “I wanted you to be able to wear both at the same time. I know you consider yourself to be a work in progress, and I think that’s awesome. I love that mindset. I love that you consider  _ us  _ to be a work in progress, and I plan to keep working and progressing for as long as you’ll keep me around.” I smiled, even as my lip quivered a little and my throat grew tight. I think he saw it happening, because he cupped my jaw softly with one hand and leaned in to kiss me, soft and gentle. He kissed me once more, on the cheek, then pulled back and went on. “But I want to make sure you know that you’re also an inspiration.” My eyes darted down to his palm, once again reading the word stamped into the metal.  _ INSPIRATION  _ “It’s just, everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve overcome, and then everything you continue to do, day-to-day - you don’t just get yourself through, you continue to be this incredible person for yourself and for everyone who gets to come into contact with you. And being a work in progress, seeing yourself that way, is part of what makes you so inspiring. So keep being a work in progress, keep seeing yourself as one, but don’t forget to see yourself as an inspiration, too. Because you are. To me, to your kids, to your niece, and to one very, very special little girl on the other side of town.” He brushed away the tears starting to slowly work their way out of my eyes with the pad of his thumb then reached down to loop his fingers through the necklace’s chain where it still hung from his other hand, shuffling it around until he held it carefully with both hands. He held it up a little higher between us and nodded softly at me. “May I?”

I nodded and scooted forward, unfolding my legs when he set the necklace down carefully on the floor and hooked his hands behind my knees. He unfolded his own legs then, stretching them in front of him on either side of me, and pulled, carefully and slowly so I didn’t go flying backward, until my legs rested on his thighs and wrapped around his hips. I closed my hands around his t-shirt over his stomach. He picked the necklace back up off the floor, studied it to make sure he had it facing the right direction, then open the clasp and leaned forward to reach around my neck, craning to watch his hands as he closed the clasp again at the back of my neck. He carefully lifted my hair and pulled it from under the chain then let it fall down my back again. He pulled away from me and hooked his fingers under the chain, lifting and pulling gently until he’d worked it all the way up to rest against the back of my neck, then finally smoothed it down, over my collarbone and a couple inches past the one I’d already been wearing. He nodded a little, seemingly giving his approval.

“Do you like it?” He finally asked when he sat all the way back up and let his hands go to rest on the outsides of my thighs. 

I closed my eyes for a second and willed my throat to loosen enough that I could speak normally. “I think you already know the answer to that question,” I told him, quietly, tugging at the front of his shirt a bit. “Which is a good thing, because I honestly don’t think I have the words to tell you how much I love it.” He blushed then, a little, and let his head fall to look down into our laps, his thumb tracing back and forth over the creases at the tops of my thighs. 

“Okay then,” he finally said, nodding emphatically. “My turn.” He reached for the stocking he’d set aside much earlier in favor of watching me go through mine.

My moment of serenity and joy came to an abrupt end and I felt something akin to panic. My hands flew up to his shoulders, “Oh god, Chris, can you not?” I tried my best to plead with him with my eyes. I had never exactly been proud of what I’d put into his stocking, but at that point I was downright humiliated. I hadn’t gotten there expecting to make a stocking for him, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have compared to the one he’d done for me. 

One the one hand, there was the financial aspect. It was no secret that he was in a much better position than I was, and I’d made it clear very early on that it would make me uncomfortable if he was always spending large amounts of money on me, amounts that I couldn’t come close to reciprocating. He’d made the point that he’d been in his current financial situation for several years by that point and that he was far from the most extravagant celebrity out there, but also that his lifestyle was just that,  _ his lifestyle _ , it was what he had become accustomed to over time. So while he certainly wanted to respect what I wanted and avoid doing things that would make me uncomfortable, he couldn’t promise to not go overboard sometimes just because he was doing what he was used to. I’d had to admit that it had made sense. So we compromised. When he came to visit me, we did things my way. I picked the places we went, I even paid more times than not. We ended up spending most of our time at a few local restaurants I loved, my favorite breweries, hiking my favorite trails with Millie, and just being together at my house. He swore he loved it that way, and I believed him. But, when I went to visit him, which was far less often than he came to visit me, we did things his way, which meant, in his words, that he got to spoil me. He still promised to try not to go crazy, but every trip to stay with him meant at least one or two things that I’d never have experienced on my own. More than anything, I didn’t want him to think that his money or his celebrity had anything at all to do with why I was drawn to him, though there was also the part of me that didn’t want to feel like I was never giving him as much as he gave me. He promised me that neither of those thoughts ever crossed his mind, and besides, since the vast majority of our time together was spent on “my turf,” the scales were somewhat tipped in my favor, and that helped me feel a little better about things overall.

Beyond that, though, his gift to me had been so perfect, so thoughtful, and I was almost ashamed for him to open his and find the silly things I’d put inside. I’d always loved giving gifts, putting thought into the perfect thing for someone I cared about and watching them open it. To think that this man who had become the love of my life and meant more to me than nearly anyone else might think that the stocking I’d put together for him was some indication of my feelings was practically unbearable. “Seriously,” I pled with him, “it’s really terrible. I’m embarrassed for you to open it.” 

He only rolled his eyes, probably thinking I was just being self-deprecating and overly dramatic. “Stop. I’m sure it’s great.”

“It’s really not.” I reached for the stocking, but he was faster than I was, shooting his arm up over his head. “Chris,” I whined.

“Baby, seriously,” he shook his head a little and wrapped the arm not holding the stocking up in the air around my back. “I know you, and there’s no way it’s terrible. And besides,” he shrugged, “it’s a stocking. They’re supposed to be silly and fun.” My face went slack and serious and I tilted my head to look up at him from below my brow, my expression screaming,  _ Oh really _ . “Okay, fine,” his voice was low and silly and his head tilted side to side as his eyes rolled up to the ceiling, “so I bent the rules a little. Doesn’t mean I expected you to.”

I didn’t say anything in response, just looked back at him through narrowed eyes for a second before pulling my legs from around his hips to shift my weight onto my knees and lunge up to grab for the stocking. Again, though, he was faster than I was, and he leaned back and away from me so I still couldn’t reach, laughing the whole time. The problem was, my sudden movement and the way he bent back caused him to lose his balance, and he tumbled backward onto the floor, stretching his legs out in front of him as he went. And instead of letting me go as he fell, he tightened his grip on me so that I went down with him. We landed with him flat on his back, his legs long and splayed a little to either side, one arm wrapped around me and the other extended past his head, still gripping the stocking, while I sprawled atop him, gripping his shoulders. I shifted a little to get off him, but he only tightened his grip on me, so instead, I just settled myself better, pulling my knees up so that they rested on either side of his waist and my legs supported some of my weight. I pushed myself up with my hands just enough to look down into his grinning face. 

He continued to smile up at me for a few seconds until he must have realized that I wasn’t joking the way he was. “Hey,” he used the arm around me to pull me tighter against him, “it’s really totally fine. The whole reason I didn’t tell you I was putting up the stockings in the first place is because I didn’t want you to go all nuts trying to build the perfect stocking.”

“Okay, but you-”

“Yeah, I know what I did. And like I’ve told you a million times, I like being able to spoil you now and then. It’s not about the money or the actual physical gift, I just like doing things for you, seeing you smile, surprising you.” His hand began to drift over my back. “ _ That  _ makes  _ me  _ happy. And if everything was always even, it wouldn’t be spoiling you, now would it?” I didn’t answer him and when he cocked his head to one side and lifted his eyebrows, doing his best to imitate my ‘teacher look,’ I just rolled my eyes in return. He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t want to admit that. He smirked. “I rest my case. Besides,” something in his voice told me he was about to be a brat, and his smirk deepened as he lifted his head off the floor to look me in the eye, “my house, my rules,” he paused, grinning cheekily at me, “my stocking.” He grinned far too wide at his own joke and I only huffed out a breath.

“You know what, Evans?” His hand had fallen to the outside of my thigh as he laughed, and I pushed myself up so that I straddled his legs, sitting on his thighs. “Eat shit.” His head fell back and I would have been scared by the way it hit the floor, except he kept laughing, loud and boisterous, so that I knew he couldn’t possibly have been hurt. Even Dodger looked up from his peanut butter filled toy for a second to see what was going on. 

As Chris continued to laugh, I moved off his legs to sit beside him. Finally, he quieted, pushing himself up to sit in front of me, laying the stocking across his lap and bringing his hands to rest on my knees where I’d once again folded my legs in front of me. “Okay,” I sighed, “open it.” He grinned and pumped one fist at his side. “Just remember!” I held up a hand, first finger up in the air, and he calmed himself - a little - and nodded to show that he was paying attention, “Everything in there was meant to be just sort of tucked in with a real gift. None of it was meant to stand alone as its own gift.”

“Hey,” he leaned forward to kiss me quickly on the lips, “isn’t that what stockings are?” I just glared at him again when he pulled back and he at least had the decency to look sheepish. He leaned back in and murmured against my lips, “You know I’m not good with rules.” 

He distracted me with kisses, and by the time he finally pulled back, he’d reached into the stocking and pulled out the top two items - two of those large plastic candy canes filled with candy. “Starburst jelly beans!” He practically yelled when he looked down at the candy in his hand. “These are  _ the. Best.  _ Jelly beans.” 

“I know,” I agreed, nodding softly, “and they’re all red.”

“Fuck,” he grinned and ripped the top off one of the candy canes, dumping nearly half the jelly beans out into his palm. “So. Good,” he said around a mouthful of the chewy candy, his eyes rolling back into his head. I smiled in spite of myself. If it were anyone else, I would think he was exaggerating to make me feel better, but, for an actor, he was a terrible liar. According to him, anyway. I just thought of it as him being too sincere a person to be dishonest. “Alright,” he went on once he’d finally swallowed down the candy, “let’s see what else we’ve got in here.” He wiggled his eyebrows and I couldn’t help but get at least a little caught up in his excitement. He reached back into the stocking and pulled out two quart-sized ziploc bags. He looked down to study them for a second then his head shot up, his eyes wide. “Are these?”

I nodded. “Chess squares.” The cream cheese and sugar cookie bars went by many names, but the one I’d known them by since I was a kid was ‘chess squares.’ They were more sugar than anything else, and beloved by pretty much everyone who’d ever tried them. I wish I could say it was because I was some incredible baker, but it was a basic recipe that revolved around a boxed cake mix. Still, I knew how much he loved them, and that’s what really mattered.

“But,” his brow furrowed then, and he separated the bags, holding one in each hand and looking down at them, confused, “this isn’t a whole pan. Where are the rest?”

I let out a quiet giggle. “No, that’s almost half a pan. I actually made two and split them four ways - you, Scott, and your sisters. Your big sis got a few extra, for the kids.”

“Okay,  _ that’s  _ not fair. You don’t love the rest of them as much as you love me.”

“Chris!” I smacked his arm.

“What? It’s true.” He made his face as cute, as innocent as possible, and I had to draw my lips between my teeth to keep from smiling and letting him see how well his little game was working. 

“Yeah, well, in a few weeks you’ll be in Virginia, and I’ll make you as many as you want. I’ll make a pan every day, if you want.” Obviously, I didn’t plan to do any such thing, though I would of course make him some if he wanted them. 

He put the bags of the cookies beside him on the floor with the jelly beans and his hands found their way back to my legs as he leaned forward. “I’m gonna hold you to that,” he told me, then leaned in for a quick kiss. He sat back again and picked the stocking back up. “Okay,” he said, reaching into the soft, red fabric, “let’s see what else we’ve got in here.” The chess squares had taken up quite a bit of space, thankfully, so he had to reach almost all the way to the bottom to get to the last couple gifts. I could tell by the way the stocking moved that he was opening and closing his hand, feeling the next gift between his fingers, and I knew which one it was. He kept going, giving me silly, inquisitive looks as he did, and I reached out to yank the stocking off his hand, exposing the navy socks between his fingers. His eyes grew comically large and he flipped the long socks over in his hands then pulled them apart, one sock in each hand, but the pair still attached by the tag at the top. “Babe!  _ Babe _ .” He surged forward to kiss me again, the socks still in one hand even as he wrapped it around my neck, holding my jaw with the other. The kiss was quick and a little sloppy, his teeth clashing against mine as I laughed into it. “Okay,” he started once he’d finally settled back in front of me, still staring down at the socks in his hands, “how much actual pain did it bring you to buy these?”

The socks were a dark blue, with little Patriots logos and helmets scattered across the top portions, which were long enough to run about halfway up his calves. On the soles, they read, “Don't bother me” on the right and, “I'm cheering on the Patriots” on the left. Now, I was very aware that no one would ever be able to read them while he was  _ actually  _ cheering on the Patriots, because he wasn’t exactly a ‘kick up my feet and watch the game,’ kind of guy - he was more a ‘sit on the very edge of the couch and get up to pace around the room while yelling at the game’ kind of guy - but that was beside the point. I’d also special ordered them to have his last name printed so that it would run down the outside of each foot. In the same font that is used on the jerseys, of course. They were meant to be a novelty, something to make him laugh and that I had planned to tuck in with the Julian Edelman memoir I’d gotten him. (The memoir wasn’t exactly up to his normal reading level - Edelman was certainly no Herman Hesse or Yuval Noah Harari or Malcolm Gladwell - but it did speak to the strength of the human spirit and hard work, both things Chris could certainly relate to, and besides, it was related to  _ his Patriots _ .)

“Honestly?” I prompted. He kept his head down but looked up at me through his lashes as he reached for my legs again, “I made Victoria click ‘purchase.’” His chin dropped all the way to his chest as he laughed. “And then I cleansed my soul by ordering Broncos footie pajamas for Baby Beau.” That made him laugh a little harder and dig his fingers into my thighs.

“Well,” he finally lifted his head when he’d mostly stopped laughing, “I love them.” He leaned forward to kiss my right cheek. “And I very much appreciate that you put yourself through that.” I rolled my eyes and he grinned as he leaned in to kiss my left cheek. “And most of all, I love  _ you _ .” He kissed me softly on the lips.

“I love you back,” I told him as he pulled away to sit up and look down at the socks again. He studied them for so long that I began to think he’d forgotten about the stocking altogether. The last gift in it was another that I had planned to just put in with one of his other gifts, it didn’t really matter which one, but I was actually a little bit proud of it, more than the other things in the stocking, at least. “Hey,” he looked up when I quietly interrupted his musings, “there’s one more in there.” His eyes lit up a little as he reached for the stocking that still lay on the floor where I’d dropped it when I pulled it from his hand before. 

He didn’t take his time with that one, reaching in quickly and pulling out the box. It was a simple box made of sturdy cardboard and wrapped in thin twine, tied in a neat bow on the top, and there was a foil star embossed on the lid. He shook it next to his ear and I could hear the gift, nestled on its little pillow of cotton stuffing, rattle. He narrowed his eyes and looked across at me, “Hmm, do I get jewelry too?”

I scoffed. “Not quite. Just open it.” I tangled my fingers together and tucked my hands into the space between my legs as I watched him pull the string to untie the bow. I wasn’t nervous, exactly, but I don’t know that excited would be the right word either. I was just full of anxious energy as he lifted the lid off the box and reached in, gingerly.

“Baby,” he started, staring down at the pewter keychain in his hand, “this is adorable.” I leaned forward and saw that it rested face down, so that all he was seeing was a vaguely dog-shaped silhouette with Dodger’s name and the date he’d adopted him engraved in the center. I pulled my fidgeting hands from where they’d worked their way under my crossed ankles and unclasped them, resting the left one on his right leg and reaching with the right one to flip the little metal dog over. His eyes went wide then shot over to where Dodger lay on his bed, tired or frustrated by trying to get all the peanut butter out of his new toy and resting with his head on his paws. It was almost as if he’d forgotten what his dog looked like. From the front, the keychain was very clearly modeled after Dodger. The miniature version of Chris’s best buddy was depicted in a sitting pose, all of his features and the outline of all the white markings on his face and chest etched into the metal. Chris’s eyes flew back to the keychain in his hand, “This is,” his head darted up again, first to look back over at Dodger then at me, “this is my bubba.” He looped the key ring over his middle finger then pushed everything else, the box, the twine, his stocking, off his lap and leaned forward to wrap his hands around my waist. He dragged me forward until my knees sat atop his, then I helped him out, pushing myself up onto his lap so that I sat sideways on one thigh and my legs draped across the other. His arms slid to wrap around my waist and I looped mine over his shoulders. My shirt rode up when he wrapped his arms around me and I could feel the metal of the keychain, cool against my side. 

“You like it?” My thumb drifted softly over the back of his neck.

“I fucking love it.” His response made me giggle, and when my eyes closed he leaned in to press his lips to the side of my neck. “Now I get to take the two of you with me wherever I go.”

“The two of us?”

“Well, yeah. Dodger, obviously, but there’s no way I’ll ever look at it without thinking about you, either.”

I grinned playfully, “Well then I guess that means you’re kinda stuck with me.”

He tightened his arms around me so that I fell a little against him, situating myself so that my forehead rested against his. “Am I supposed to see that as a bad thing?” he asked me, and I just shook my head. He tilted his chin forward to catch my lips in his. It started soft, sweet, but before long he was pushing his tongue past my lips and his hand was coming up to tangle in my hair. I found myself digging my short nails into his shoulders, pulling myself as tight against him as I could manage. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware that we’d slept in and that we had to be at his mom’s by lunch, which meant we didn’t have all the time in the world.

“We should …” I breathed against his lips, voice trailing off and all thought leaving my head when his mouth moved to just below my ear.

He nodded, “Shower.” But instead of stopping, he kept going, peppering kisses down the side of my neck. I forced myself to pull away, pressing a kiss to his forehead then standing. “Together,” he added, his hands landing on my ankles then sliding up the backs of my legs, dragging the hem of my pajama pants with them. 

Obviously, I wanted to say, but I just nodded and watched him pull his hands from my legs to put the keychain back in the box, securing the lid back on top. When he stood, he rested his free hand on the small of my back and turned to place the small gift box on top of the mantle before turning back to me, stepping in close and moving both hands to hook around the backs of my thighs, just below my ass, so he could lift me up. I clung to him, legs around his waist and arms wound around his shoulders, and closed my mouth around his earlobe as he walked us toward the bathroom.

We somehow, miraculously, managed to make it to Mrs. Evans’s house on time, coffee maker, gifts, and Dodger - both living and pewter - in tow. We weren’t even the last to arrive. (Granted, we didn’t have three kids to wrangle, but still.) After the previous day, and the whole week leading up to it, really, I hadn’t needed anything more to make it a perfect family Christmas. But, in true Evans fashion, that’s exactly what they gave me. By the time we made it back to Chris’s house that night, I was exhausted, far too full from Mrs. Evans’s Christmas lunch and way too many cookies and other treats, and happier than I could remember being in a long, long time. 

Our Christmas pajamas had gone straight into the hamper after our shower that morning, so while Chris was pulling a pair of sweats from his dresser drawer, I stole a tshirt to wear to bed. When we got back downstairs, Chris set up  _ It’s a Wonderful Life  _ on the tv and I grabbed a beer for him and a glass of red wine for me, then we snuggled down into the couch - all three of us - Chris draping a blanket over my bare legs. We hadn’t made it 20 minutes into the classic film before I’d abandoned my wine on the coffee table and was struggling to keep my eyes open. 

“Hey,” he murmured, running his hand lightly through my hair where his arm hooked around my shoulders, “you wanna go to bed?”

I shook my head. “I like it here. The tree’s pretty.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Yeah, it is.” He rested his cheek on my head before going on. “Did you have a good Christmas, sweet girl?”

I nodded against his shoulder. “It was perfect.”

“Promise?” I nodded again. “Good. I love you, baby.” His fingers continued to drift lightly over my hair. “Can I be really cheesy for a second?”

I giggled, “Please do.”

“You know I love Christmas, and I can be like a little kid,” I nodded, “but the best part of this Christmas, the best gift I could have asked for,” he tightened his arm around me and pulled me a little closer to him, “is this. Merry Christmas baby, thank you for being here, and just for being  _ you,  _ and sharing that with me.”

He was right, it was cheesy. It sounded like a line from a Hallmark Christmas movie. But it also sounded sincere, and it made a little lump form between my chest and my throat. I waited a second for that knot to loosen. “You’re welcome. And thank you for everything, for my perfect family Christmas, for making me smile until my face hurts. And I love you too, more than you know.”

He took a long drink from his beer bottle, emptying it, then set it on the end table at his elbow. “Hey,” he turned a little, pressing his back to the arm of the couch and looking down at me, “you wanna just sleep here? Camp out by the tree?” I grinned and nodded, and he smiled back at me before standing to start pulling the cushions from the back of the couch, stacking them in the chair on the other side of the room. “Go ahead and lay down,” he told me while moving the second and third cushions. I did, and once he’d finished he climbed over me to spoon me, wrapping his top arm tight around my waist and tucking the bottom one under the pillow I’d laid there for him. “Best Christmas ever,” he whispered into my ear once he was settled, and those words, running through my head on repeat in his voice, were the last thought I had as I drifted off to sleep minutes later.

**Author's Note:**

> All pieces in this collection will be an anthology of connected one-shots that exist within the same universe; and they officially no longer follow chronological order. They may eventually be reorganized into novel-format, but that would be quite a way down the road.
> 
> Also, there will be a whole other story later about the NYC trip, so if you were disappointed that there wasn't more on that, just be patient with me please!


End file.
